Monday, September 7, 2015

Scourge of War Waterloo - Formations, Transitions

Well, I've read it all about the I-take-everything-explicit crowd complaining about scale, conga lines and passages of lines in Norbsoft's Waterloo (check the Matrix official forums if you don't know about this). My turn now: what does the game can do right? Today's topic: transition between formations.

A battalion in a column by divisions formation (right) will take 25 seconds of game time to transition into a line formation (left).

As you know the line formation brings the most firepower of the battalion onto the enemy. A battalion will automatically deploy into a line formation when it is in range of an enemy formation, that's why I'm interested in these transitions (they will happen without my supervision most of the time).

A battalion in a column formation (foreground) will take 42 seconds of game time to transition into a line formation (background).

As you can see, if going into a line formation, there is a significant amount of time saved by having the battalion deployed into a columns by divisions formation, as shown in the first image of this entry.

Now, the interesting stuff happens at the brigade level, where the player can deploy his forces in a combination of formations, as shown below.

A brigade viewed from the left flank. The foreground battalion (left flank) is deployed in a columns by division formation, the center battalions are in line formation (one battalion has deployed skirmishers).

And ... Before you go into a diatribe about how 500 men can change formation in just 25 seconds ... Time has a small share of abstraction/compression in Scourge of War.

5 comments:

I know very little about Napoleonic Tactics but as a member of the Canadian Army we still use to this very day many of the movements that were used on the Napoleonic battlefield on the drill square. Obviously poorly trained men would be much slower, but I think you'd be surprised at how quickly a 1,000 man battalion can change formation. Our drills are taken from the British Army and I don't think they are any different.

With a battalion in column of threes, forming mass. Changing direction right or left at the halt or on the march.Close column of companies to battalion in line...advance in review order....fix bayonets. Pretty well most of the movements required on the Napoleonic battlefield.I believe that any Commonwealth Infantry battalion would do most of these drills when they "Troop the Colours" which usually happens every 3 yrs or so. So if you ever have the opportunity check it out.